Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind “Blade Runner 2049,” has sued Elon Musk, Tesla Motors and Warner Bros. Discovery over the car company’s use of AI-generated images that were used in a presentation of its new Cybercab and were meant to represent the 2017 Denis Villeneuve sci-fi film.
In court filings obtained by TheWrap, Alcon claims that Warner Bros. Discovery approached Alcon CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, asking permission to use images and clips from “Blade Runner 2049” in Tesla’s presentation of the Cybercab the next day. Kosove and Johnson “refused WBD’s request, objecting to their film being affiliated in any way with Tesla, Musk or any Musk-owned company.”
The lawsuit explained that Alcon did not want the film associated with Tesla in part because of Musk’s political views, which have become heavily scrutinized as reports have surfaced that the billionaire was using his recently acquired social media platform X — formerly known as Twitter — to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
“Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account,” the lawsuit read. “If, as here, a company or its principals do not actually agree with Musk’s extreme political and social views, then a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more issue-fraught.”
In addition to this, Alcon noted that it is currently working on product partnerships for the upcoming TV series “Blade Runner 2099,” including with other automotive companies, and did not want to create potential brand confusion by associating “2049” with Tesla.
TheWrap has reached out to Tesla for comment.
More to come…
Leave a Reply